SCIENTISTS SAY THEY’VE FOUND A WAY TO TURN OFF OUR JUNK FOOD CRAVINGS

When I hear the term “diet supplement,” I tend to think of the types of pills the government banned because truckers were using them to drive from Toledo to Grand Junction without any sleep.

But British scientists believe they’ve found a new type of diet supplement – one that works without the dizzying high of stimulants – that’s able to cut junk food cravings by increasing a natural activity in our gut.

The findings come from a team of researchers from Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow working with an ingredient called inulin-propionate ester. According to an article from Imperial College London, this ingredient causes bacteria in the gut to release larger amounts of propionate – a molecule that helps inform the brain that you’ve had enough to eat – compared to when people consume plain-old inulin, a type of dietary fiber. Both inulin and inulin-propionate ester trigger propionate production, but the latter supplement boosts production by 2.5 times.